Global Warming Treaty Bad Policy

JOAN BECK - CHICAGO TRIBUNE

December 2, 1998|JOAN BECK and CHICAGO TRIBUNE

President Clinton had little to worry about when he signed the Kyoto global warming treaty last week. He gets points for seeming to be environmentally correct. But he won't have to face up to the agreement's consequences because he knows the Senate won't ratify it. For that, we can all be thankful.

Clinton had been forewarned. The Senate last year passed a resolution by 95 to 0 telling the president not to sign any treaty that obligated the United States to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases unless the same limitations were put on developing countries. They weren't.

The November meeting in Buenos Aires to finalize agreements made last December in Kyoto, Japan, attracted little public attention and criticism in the United States. But the consequences of what the treaty calls for would enormously increase energy costs and consumer products for Americans, make American agricultural products less competitive abroad, transfer millions of jobs overseas and essentially tax the American economy for the benefit of developing nations.

Clinton -- and certainly Al Gore -- seem to accept without question the fact of global warming: That it is caused by greenhouse gases resulting from burning fossil fuels accumulating in the atmosphere. That it will be catastrophic if not prevented. And that the United States is the chief culprit.

But the science of global warming still holds a lot of tough, unanswered questions. Computer models still can't account for climate changes everywhere on Earth, over long periods of time, much less predict the future. Nor can they separate current weather from the warming and cooling that have occurred over eons, long before people burned much fossil fuel. Periodic fluctuations in the activity of the sun can't be ruled out as a factor yet. Reliable computer models won't be available for at least a decade, some scientists say. For now, it's difficult to find consistent studies showing an indisputable scientific link between global warming and energy use.

Even if warming does happen, it will occur at night, for the most part, and in cold regions such as Siberia, some analysts point out. Many areas, perhaps, such as the American middle west and Canada may even benefit from a longer growing season and less severe winters.

In any case, it's likely that the consequences of this treaty, if ratified, would do more damage to the United States sooner than man-made climate change, at least in the predictable future.

For example, under the Kyoto agreement, the largest industrialized nations agree that beginning in 2008, they will cut the emissions of greenhouse gases 5 percent below 1990 levels. The United States has pledged a 7 percent slash. That's a 41 percent reduction in projected levels of emissions from what they were at the beginning of this decade. And, say critics of the pact, that will lead to a 53 percent increase in gasoline prices and sharp jumps in other energy costs.

The developing nations are largely exempt from the required cuts -- the problem that is of prime concern to many senators. China, for example, is rapidly increasing its emissions of greenhouse gases and is predicted to become the world's largest polluter in another decade and a half. By 2015, developing countries are projected to produce more than 50 of all greenhouse gases. For now, the entire burden of emissions reductions falls on the United States and other industrialized nations.

Some cuts in greenhouse gases would surely come from new technology. But new technology can't always be produced on demand. Although alternative methods would create some new jobs, analysts say they would not be enough to take care of all the workers who would lose out in the disruptions. And it would be tempting for U.S. industries, facing higher energy costs and paying for new technology, simply to shift their operations abroad, where labor is already less expensive.

One proposal for easing the burden this treaty would place on the United States is a system of "emissions trading," allowing American industries, for example, to buy credits from other countries or businesses. This could turn out to be, essentially, a huge tax on American enterprises.

There are also concerns about new international controls over the U.S. economy and about how the Kyoto agreement would be enforced. The nations which met in Buenos Aires will be developing operational rules over the next two years. But critics of the pact are wary of the possibility of yielding power over American industries to international organizations.